


Dirk is sick (or sad)

by ClaraCivry (Kat_Of_Dresden)



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-16 22:48:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9292928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Of_Dresden/pseuds/ClaraCivry
Summary: Dirk Gently angst, plain and simple.Requests welcome.





	1. Darkness

Sometimes, the darkness crept on him.

Sure, things were supposedly better now. He had friends, people who cared about him, or pretended to care anyway. He had cases, and his agency was an actual agency now, with moeny and people and ressources... The blackwing days were long gone, and they could stay gone. Yeah, generally, things were good.

But then there would be a little moment, a small gesture that made him doubt everything. Todd playfully asked him to shut up. Farah asked him to leave her alone. Amanda cancelled something they were supposed to do together. And then it all came crashing down again.

No one actually liked him, he really had no friends. He didn't deserve any, anyways. He was a monster, an experiment, a project, nothing else. He would never live a normal life, he would never be not alone. Everything he thought he had achieved was an illusion. No one really liked him, they had just found him funny, quirky. He made their lives less boring at first, but the novelty had worn off. And he was not worth keeping around, not worth the trouble.

What hurt the most is that for a moment he had felt hope, and now he had to go back to his usual resignation. Sure, things weren't all bad, and he knew he could live on his own, he had done so most of his life.... But it hurt. It hurt because he had thought he could not be alone for once, be able to choose to be with people, to share things with them. And now he had to go back.

Go back to knowing he probably wouldn't have anyone ever, at least not for long. The universe didn't want it, maybe. There was something wrong with him - the would always be. And whomever got close to him would either die or abandon him. Maybe it was better this way.

When the darkness crept over him, Dirk felt maybe he should have left those CIA people do whatever they wanted with him. All those experiments, all those tests. Maybe they should have let them break him, and it would have hurt less. At least, it wouldn't have been his fault. With this he knew, it was him. He wasn't enough, not for Todd and Farah and Amanda. Never truly a part of them.

So he let himself go for a while. Didn't eat, didn't sleep for a while. Watched the night sky and try not to be eaten by the darkness. The others asked if he was okay, looked at him, but it was just white noise. He smiled at them and told them that everything was fine, but everything was not fine- the darkness was still there.

It was like a scar. Sometimes hidden, but always there. Part of him. 

 

One day, he passed out while running away from some people with guns. The world just blurred and then turned off. And then started disappeared all around him. He thought he heard something or someone, but could do nothing about it. 

 

And when he woke up, he wasn't alone and he saw the genuine care in the faces on those he'd given up on. Todd, Amanda, Farah, even the youngest Rowdy. 

 

“You okay?” 

 

“I am now.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nightmares, as requested by Likewateriswet!

Dirk was having a nightmare, and a bad one. They weren't all that common when he was working a case because his head was distracted and normally when he went to bed he was too tired to dream. Which was a good thing because he had nightmares often, very often, sometimes even full blown night terrors. They were always so vivid, so real... Sometimes he woke up in the floor having fallen at some point of the night, sometimes he had tear tracks on his face.

 

When he'd been with Blackwing, he barely did dream. To avoid any nocturnal damage to their “project” the people who worked with him normally sedated him so he spent very long without a single dream. This made the dreams he had when he got out particularly firghtnening, because he wasn't used to such a thing. And when he woke up, he was always alone and disoriented, and needed some time to know where he was, what had happened, what was reality and what dream.

 

There even had been some desperate times in which he missed the sedation of Blackwing and the peace that it brought, even if it had never been his choice. Despite his incredible capacity for optimism and positive thought, his mind could also be a terrifying dark place.

 

The nightmares varied in topics, in intensity and in length. Blackwing and the thing they'd done to him while in there were often present. Sometimes he saw in dreams things that they did tha he'd repressed while awake. Because, oh yeah, Dirk Gently had repressed a whole lot of crap, but when he was dreaming everything was there, everything was present.

 

When he was younger he dreamed more about cells and doctors that opened him to look around, to see what made him what he was. For science, they said and they treated him like a curious object instead of person, some kind of emotionless monster who didn't deserve the same consideration as the rest of humans. But then he was able to get out there, put some distance between himself and the horrors he'd lived and his dreams changed.

 

After some horrifying dreams of running and running and still getting caught, the Blackwing people and his lies starting being less present in his nights. Now it was just him on his dreams – alone. So incredibly, absolutely alone. He dreamt of falling into a well and no one coming for him until he died, cold, alone and forgotten in the dark. He dreamt that he was on a crowded street and no one saw him, or heard him, as if he wasn't there. He dreamt of a million blank faces that rejected him, over and over and over again.

 

And then he met his friends, and they stayed with him despite all the bad things he was and they came for him when he went missing and his dreams cahnged once more, along with his fears. Suddenly, they were the ones dying, because of him, because he had put them in harm's way. He'd wronged them and failed them and let them down.

 

Some other times it was he who was in harm's way in the dreams because his friends had turned him in, betrayed him. They laughed at him while Riggins and his brute of a friend took him away, because they had never thought of him as anything more than a freak who was only good at speaking too much and getting people into trouble they hadn't asked for. So they abandoned him and gave him away to people who only meant to hurt him.

 

So yeah, that was mainly it: experiments, dying abandoned, his friends dying, being betrayed. In this case it was the first one: Dirk was in a white cell with no windows and a bunch of cameras, there were nondescript workers who injected him with liquids and asked questions he couldn't answer. They caused him pain and them documented it.

 

Todd and Farah were woken by moans, gasps and occasional wishpers of “Please don't”s coming from the room where Dirk was sleeping. Farah had asked both his friends to leave their doors open, in case an intruder got in and they needed help – which was exactly what she thought when she heard the noise, that someone had broken into Dirk's room and he was struggling to free himself of the attacker.

 

As she was silently making her way, there was movement behind her and she pointed her gun towards it, startling a semi-awake Todd.

 

“What are you doing? You nearly gave me a heart attack!” He whispered.

 

“There's someone in Dirk's room.” She whispered.

 

“Yeah, him!” Todd said, not understanding.

 

“Someone else is attacking him.”

 

“He's just having a nightmare.”

 

Farah's posture changed and she lowered her gun, realisation dawning on her.

 

“Oh. I hadn't thought of that.”

 

“Should we wake him? It sounds pretty bad. Yeah, probably, before it gets worse. Why don't go you go ahead?”

 

Todd didin't know if this was exactly the right thing to do (maybe he was messing with sleep cycles, maybe if he woke him now Dirk wouldn't be able to get more sleep) but he couldn't just hear his friend suffering, even if it was just in dreams. He knew first hand how much pain the mind was able to produce.

 

So he went in and saw Dirk with a pained expression on his face, only the bottom of his pyjamas on and the sheets a complete mess, and he was breathing quickly and irregularly, moving around on the bed as if trying to get away from someone or something.

 

“Dirk, hey wake up, man. It's just a dream. Come on, buddy, wake up. Wake up!”

 

Surprised out-of-focus blue eyes opened suddenly and looked towards the source of the noise.

 

“Todd, why are you in my cell? How could they get to you, I don't...”

 

“Dirk”

 

“You need to get away, Todd, they'll hurt you... And not in a good way, you-you need to run” There was a panicky edge to Dirk's voice that told Todd his friend wasn't all there yet.

 

“Dirk!”

 

This got the detective out of his reverie long enough to let him take in his surroundings, which he looked with confusion.

 

“You're not in a cell.” Todd's voice said. “You're safe, I'm safe, it was just a nightmare.”

 

Dirk breathed, slowly realising what had happened. He drew a nervous smile.

 

“We are safe, aren't we? That's a relief! But oh, it's the middle of the night and you're here... Didi I wake you with my nonsense? Did I scream? I didn't mean...”

 

“Don't worry about it. Are you okay? That dream sounded pretty horrible.”

 

“I-I am now. My usual untroubled self.”

 

“You know that you can talk about it... if you want. Of course.”

 

“You mean that, Todd?”

 

“Of course. I told you all my crap, it's only fair I listened to yours. And I... I don't like seeing you like that, having such a hard time... If I can help, I'm here.”

 

There was a small shy smile in Todd's face which prompted a much bigger one in Dirk's.

 

“Can I get a hug?”

 

“Sure.”

 

The nightmares were still there, and they were still horrible, but having someone there when you woke made the whole ordeal a whole less sad... less lonely.

 

When he went back to sleep, Dirk dreamed of tea cups, and woke up with a smile.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CIA angst, requested by Starfish-without-stick in tumblr

He thought he was servicing the world, making it a better place, becoming an asset for the good guys, an ally for all the greatness. A hero, even. That was why he endured all that he endured, that was why he didn't try to escape. That was the reason why he had even given up his name and became a mere project.

He really didn't many people or things out in the world, but he gave those up too, he gave up all that he knew for the cause. It didn't matter how much he hurt, what experiments they did on him – the pain didn't matter, the cause was more important than him, more important than his life, even if they still hadn't achieved anything so far.But there were people hurting in the world, being the unsuspecting victims of crime network and he could help. This doctors or whatever they were, with the results that they got from him could make everything better. He was using his abilities for good, sharing them with the people that needed them most.

But with time, it became harder and harder to live like that. In a tiny room with no windows, with only some bland meals and getting cleaned in cold showers, other people with masks touching him. And he was prodded with needles and bombarded with images, lights and questions... If he wasn't convinced of his cause and that joining had been his decision, he would have considered that treatment near torture.

After some time, despite his efforts trying to convince himself of this being the right choice, all his dreams became nightmares, so they started sedating him. Still, he cried himself to sleep nearly every night. When he woke up from his drug addled sleep, all he wanted to do was cry too. There was no joy in anything, so dignity in his suffering anymore.

He couldn't see the end, he didn't know if there would ever be an end. Maybe he would be there forever, maybe the next experiment would properly undo him, or the next, or the next. Perhaps he wasn't even helping anyone, just fullfilling the desires of some sadist CIA big fish and there was no great cause, it was all a disappointment. What they told him, what they made him believe were all lies.

He didn't want to eat anymore, so they put an IV on him. He became more and more numb, the days becoming a blur. There was no good, just lies and pain and hurt. He realised that he was not in control at all, that he'd lost his life – they'd taken it from him.

It all went downhill from there. His life became a series of days, blurred, moments of pain, moments of sorrow, tears, needles, being hurt and people shouting at him. He couldn't trust the kind words and the rude ones only hurt. His body was starting to complain, he lost weight, he had shadows under his eyes even though he slept, he was tired and achy, he lost colour in his skin.

He didn't have energy anymore, to answer all those questions, pretend he care, try to convince himself that this was good, that he was doing a good service. Hardly had any energy at all to think, and the only thing he could think about was how alone and tired he was, he useless, how deceived, how unimportant.

The universe had abandoned him. The stream of creation had stopped.

He was lost in darkness.

And then, the universe made him a sign, so he would wake up again. It was a boy, younger than him, running past his cell and screaming. Hoping for help. This dissolved any residual doubt he might have had. The universe was telling him that he had to get out, that there was no noble cause. It was telling him that he needed to go, needed to escape, needed to sever all ties with that place.

And so he started to look for signs.

The universe always provided with ways.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Estevez drives Dirk to the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by anon and Simonep

 

Estevez wondered how he ended up in this messed up situation as he drove an unconscious holistic detective to the hospital. Maybe he should have called for an ambulance but then the paramedics would have seen all the bullet holes in the house and some of the rest of crazy shenanigans and he was in no mood to explain anything. So while one of those crazy vandals that had stormed in took care of Brotzman (apparently, one of them was his sister so it was okay to leave him with them) Estevez took Dirk Gently to some much needed medical care

 

As he drove, all the events of the night hit him suddenly. It had been a whirlwind of a day, weirder that the whole rest of his life combined (and he'd encountered some really strange things while working on missing persons for as long as he had) but tiday.... A dog in a girl, a time loop, trained killers, a time machine, so many electrocutions and soul changing and things that this very morning he didn't think possible.

 

It was madness, absolute madness. He had just been trying to find out what had happened to Lydia Spring, trying to do his job, his honest non-magical non-supernatural job and now Zimmerfield was dead and he was knee deep in X-files nonsense. Scratch that, X files made more sense than this. And now he'd entered a new dimension, where the edges of what was possible and what shouldn't be stretched over any boundaries.

 

And this man next to him, the Brit that was still bleeding on his passenger seat (he had tried to stop the bleeding, him and Miss Black, but it was tough with not one but two holes in that shoulder), he was on the centre of it all. He was like a bunch of weird thing and imposibleness wearing a person suit. But despite whatever otherworldly abilities he may have, he was still a regular human being with limitations and organs and all the rest. Someone who bled red, and who needed to stop sometimes, leave the actions to others, rest, be taken care of. The same way Zimmerfield had taken care of him so many times.

 

(Better not to think about that much, Estevez was pretty overwhelmed with emotions as it was)

 

Gently was a nice enough guy, even if they had mostly talked when he had an arrow in his shoulder and wasn't fully coherent. Most other cops he knew, if they got an injury like that, would have been complaining and saying curse words and being angry, but not this guy. He'd handled with injury with confused niceness, and, dare he say it, some kind of strange grace. Gently had put solving the mystery and helping Lydia before his own self, and he and his friends had managed to give them all a happy ending, despite all the injuries and the blod loss.

 

Stubborn, strangely smart, cheerful. Probably not a bad partner to have minus him attracting all that weird shit. (Although, if he had to choose a new partner among that bunch of oddballs, he'd chosen Miss Black no doubt, she was a bit scary, but that lady knew how to move and how to shoot Jesus Christ) Dirk had charisma, a magnetic appeal that made you go with what he said and even smile at it, no matter how crazy it sounded.

 

He hadn't woken up since before those Rowdies had come to save the day, probably didn't even know that it had all turned out okay, the poor soul. Estevez was starting to get a bit too worried. He'd stopped the bleeds and bandaged the wounds as best as he could, but he was no doctor. He didn't know if it would be enough.

 

Estevez wondered how many other scars and bandages the man hid. If all his life had anything to do with last week, he was probably covered in scars, each one with an impossible to believe story to match. He wondered if he had all someone to drive him all those times before, someone to take care of his wounds. Or if he had been alone.

 

They were approaching the hospital now, which was good. Some good medical proffesionals, a nice bed, some terrible but always-there hospital food. A bit of rest ater all that excitement would do the Brit a world of good. An anchor point, a dose of good old-fashioned reality. Still, Estevez was glad that he'd been dragged into this, that he'd helped, that he'd known this madness. It made his life richer, more exciting. Opened the world to new horizons of posibilities, and cool adventures to be had.

 

He would be sure to thank him the next time he visited, when he was awake.

 

When they took Dirk away on the entrance of the emergency room he told the paramedics to be careful, not to jostle him so much. Estevez had the impression that the Brit was more fragile than he seemed, that under those unnerving grins and bright colored jackets he was someone who could be hurt very easily. Someone who bled and hurt like the others, or perhaps more deeply.

 

Estevez gave a name and gave his insurance number, as Gently probably hadd none and he didn't want him to get into money trouble after saving the girl, the timeline and probably the integrity of the universe. He left his number in the entrance too, so that they would call him if something happened. He would come back to visit, but wanted to know.

 

It seemed a boring stop on the way, this hospital, but who knew. Maybe Dirk had been hurt for a reson maybe this hospital trip was the beginning of a new adventure, even more unlikely and with even weirder people.

 

Not for Estevez, though. He was about to live the adventure that would tragically his last.

 

A pity. Dirk and the others would have loved to have him around for longer.

 

Just a bit longer.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Feedback is super appreciated!! :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Any ideas for any more Dirk hurt/comfort or sickfics?


End file.
